"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Upscale Rabble Rousing

I think Stewart's rant against Prick Santelli last night, initiated by Santelli cancelling (per CNBC orders), was not about the lack of prognostication skills at CNBC, though there was a well-deserved element of that. It struck me as being primarily about the fact that network and its commentators exist only to serve as a more direct conduit for transmitting the sentiments of the casino owners. All too frequently this bleeds into their political sentiments as well, for which a hired goon like Jim Cramer is all too happy to put on big floppy shoes and a red rubber nose, and be the financial grifters' butt-boy.

Let's not put too fine a point on this: it's not about pointing the finger every time someone happens to be wrong about something. It's about systematically putting forth arguments and "news segments" in clear bad faith. It's about a punk-ass like Santelli loudly proclaiming that the interests of the nation revolve around the chance predictions and greedy hunches of a cabal of coke-head short-sellers who would kill their own grandmothers for a quarter-point hedge.

It's about the pretense that the short-sellers know what they're doing, and that terminal dipshits like Santelli and Cramer know what the fuck they're talking about, that the complexities of the planet should be run by chasing a daily graph posted by a crew of inbred thieves. It's about being skirt-lifting cheerleaders, willing dupes for a manifestly corrupt industry whose malfesance borders on domestic terrorism. For some reason we have allowed financial agitprop to achieve this exalted status, instead of showing scenes of people playing craps and roulette behind Cramer's bulbous head every time he opens his piehole. Motherfucker should be pimping Shamwows at the Saturday flea market.

Awesome, thanks. Actually, the observation about rhythm means a lot too, because most of this stuff is extemporaneous, but there's generally a rhythm underpinning any given post, even the long-ass, Tales from Topographic Oceans posts.